http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6241-2003Jun17.html



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Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading


By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; 5:22 PM


WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."

Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.

"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.

The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.

Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.

"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."

Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.

But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users.

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On the Net: Sen. Hatch: http://hatch.senate.gov

Unbefuckinlievable! [V]


Some people are born stupid and stay that way - others continue to hone their inborn talents all throughout life.

Sen. Hatch is old and is on his way out.

What is the difference between me sharing a cassette with a friend and and mp3? nothing.  To break a copyright law dont I have to profit in some way?  If anything the internet has been a great tool for the music industry.  More people are getting exposed to there music and message.

I wonder if next he will propose blowing up the cars of people who speed.

What a nut job.  Add this to the Patriot Act and all the big government programs that Bush has been adding, and you have to wonder just what party the Republicans really belong to.

Woo hoo!

sherrick's going to dream about a radar gun with a "launch missiles" button tonight

[lol]

I assume that anything I have can be breeched, but what would be a safeguard to this kind of attack? Linux hardware firewall? Zonealarm Pro? Router firewall?
tony

[rolleyes]

It's such utter, pie-in-the-sky bullshit. It's not technically feasible or possible.

First of all, the REAL geeks have been trading binary files via NNTP years before P2P ever came along. They don't even know what the hell USENET is.

How many press releases like this have you EVER heard them bitch and moan about newsgroups?  None. Because they don't know those funky ASCII text messages can be pasted back together again to render a VCD of the Incredible Hulk before it's even released in the theater.

Dipshits.

that's always been my fallback for when they somehow figure out (yeah right) how to stop kazaa/napster/ etc.

my subscription to giganews

alt.binaries.mp3 here I come

[naughty]



(alt.binaries.erotica.breasts sounds good too)

Woo hoo!²

This could be the start of a hacking war of unknown proportions. [}:D]

like i said in the other thread, that is a very, very bad idea

Hatch is off his ass.

[Chris Rock] I don't see anyone tryin' to blow Orrin Hatch[:D][/Chris Rock]




CHRIS

'SCO, the North Korea of IT'

Which makes Microsoft what??? Communist China??? [;)]

The analogy fits, though... If SCO is NK, their 'parent' would be analogous to China... Add in a penchant for anti-competitive action, and such, and it REALLY fits...